


here's hoping

by chaoticisms



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, tony's kind of a matchmaker?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:42:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28381143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticisms/pseuds/chaoticisms
Summary: Some things Coulson just can't control, no matter how hard he tries.
Relationships: Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Comments: 15
Kudos: 52





	here's hoping

i. 

He catches her watching him, through the glass in his office, brown eyes searching and a little hostile. 

He's got Maria in there, she's standing a bit too close. Just a business call, but she doesn't know that. He knows how it looks.

He can see the little fire in her eyes before she shuts her computer, gets her bag, and leaves the room, and he files that look away, preserving it for the next time he needs to feel the blood pound through his veins. 

He loves it when she's fierce.

He shifts from his perch on the edge of his desk, puts it between him and Maria, cocks his head, and says whatever it is she needs him to say so she can leave. 

As soon as she does, he gets up too, picks up his jacket, and beelines for the locker room by the training rooms. He catches the door just as she's on her way out, and stands there in the doorway so she almost walks right into him.

She gives him a wary, angry, hungry look as she steps back and it's like every flash of those eyes sets a little bit more of him alight. 

"You know she's my boss, right? Sometimes she has to talk to me," he says, low voice, a slight smile lifting the edge of his mouth. 

Her eyes flash again; he hides the way it feels like hot ice shooting down his spine.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says, defiant, unwilling to give an inch. He admires her stubborn pride, never acknowledging what they both already know. 

He tilts his head, still blocking the door. "What are you doing tonight?" 

"Seeing Andrew," she says, and that answer comes a little quick, it's a little too convenient. The smirk doesn't shift from his face. 

"Good for you," he says, and he sees the flicker of annoyance, of frustration, of what she wants, warring with what she believes she can have. He steps aside. 

She inhales deeply and brushes by him, and when he catches the subtle, sweet scent of her passing him by his fingers itch to catch her wrist, her hand, to pull her flush against him and stop this war of attrition. 

“Not tired of dating civilians then?" he asks, casually, and she freezes. She half-looks back over her shoulder and says nothing, a storm brewing in her gaze.

He breathes out slowly and wonders if this is what it's like to burn alive. 

ii. 

It gets harder to resist over time, not easier. 

He debates with himself daily about whether he should cut himself off, like some kind of drug addict, before he really does go too far down this path.

But it's too late, he thinks. Cutting her off from him would be like sawing off his own leg; it's just not something he could do even if he tried. Not when she’s just standing there in her catsuit, passionate about their upcoming mission - arguing with him, like usual, has him struggling to keep himself standing behind his own desk and away from her. 

Even when, and maybe especially when, she's pissed at him, he wants to drown himself in her touch. 

"God- can you just-" her patience wears through to breaking point at his continued silence, assuming his unresponsiveness is his intransigence and not her driving him to distraction. Her fierce eyes burn into him and he finally takes a few steps towards her, hands on her hips, some primal part of him screaming at him to do something. 

"Why are we always fighting, now?" she says, voice tight with frustration. He looks at her, his head tilted expectantly, and she fidgets under that look because he knows she knows the reason just as well as he does. 

"Because we can't do anything else about this," he says in a low voice.

For years, neither of them has said a word to acknowledge the tension, the rapidly accelerating cascade of sparks between them, like letting the house catch fire while they keep on living in it. Until then. It's the point of no return, but he's had enough. 

"What do you mean, 'this'?" she asks, bold and challenging and just a hint of fervor and all the rest of the things that make him want her like he's never wanted anyone else before.

"I want you," he admits aloud, for the very first time. Her eyes don't grow wide, don't give away any surprise because it's anything but surprising. It doesn't mean he doesn't notice the sudden blaze behind her eyes, the intensity of that moment etched into the darkening shade of brown. She exhales.

"But the fact that I want you doesn't mean I can have you," he says, the corner of his mouth twisting up as he looks at her, a mix of bitterness and affection in the way he smiles.

"I know," she says. She drops the hostility, whatever they were arguing over, tossed aside, and forgotten in the wake of what's just changed in the air between them. She breathes out slowly and takes a few steps forward. Lust makes her bold, and she lingers, standing just that bit closer than she usually dares to, her lips only inches from his as she looks up at him. Her eyes drop to where the pulse must be jumping in his throat and he swallows, hard. She smiles.

"Let's try this again tomorrow."

She means planning the mission, but he thinks maybe she also means this tantalizing dance of back and forth that's slowly killing him. She holds his gaze fearlessly until at last, she turns on her heel and leaves. 

He grips the edge of his desk and pinches the bridge of his nose.

He'll fight this for her sake but he's starting to think there's only one way this can end and it's not an ending where he gets to keep the moral high ground. 

iii. 

They're at a Stark gala, dressed up like it's a red carpet event, and he swears that Gods are testing him. Or, he would, if he didn't know how deliberate this all is. 

She's wearing a deep red cocktail dress with a plunging neckline even his wildest imaginations couldn’t imagine. Not even the Asgardians have anything on her, and he's sure as hell she knows it. She's confident and unashamed, and every time she moves she takes his eye with her. 

The only small mercy is that he's not the only person there that night who can't stop staring at her. She's turning heads wherever she walks and he might have been annoyed by that if it didn't make his inability to stop looking at her a little less obvious. 

But he's not as subtle as he thinks and halfway through the night she's talking to some slick businessman from Germany and he just wants to know what it is he said that's making her laugh like that. 

And he's not paying any attention to a word the man of the hour is saying. 

"Something going on that I should know about?" Tony says, twirling his champagne flute calculatingly. Phil jerks his attention back to him. 

"What?" he says, irritably. There's a knowing look on Tony's face and he doesn't like it. 

"I've seen that look before," Tony says, draining his glass and depositing it with a passing waiter. "It's the same look I gave Pepper before she ever agreed to go out with me."

He almost chokes on his own champagne then, and he can only stare at Tony like an idiot with nothing to say. He's defenseless because there is no defense against the obvious truth. 

Tony shakes his head. "Be careful," he says, and Phil knows the warning is serious. "Because you can't go there. Not while you’re bot-"

"I know," he snaps, tired of being told what everyone already knows. She is off-limits, and he is screwed. 

He looks over at her again and feels unbidden relief to see she's walking always from the Deutsche douche in his fancy matte black tux that was probably worth more than Lola. She looks up and meets his gaze and the slow, knowing smile she gives him is a turn-on he can't explain any more than he can deny it. 

He waits for Tony to disappear and get caught up with some Silicon Valley billionaire whose money is more interesting than policing him before finally he dares approach her for the first time that night. 

She looks up at him from under dark lashes, and she could almost be soft and innocent at that moment but he already knows that that's not true; she knows full well how that look makes him want to drop to his knees and beg.

"Enjoying the party?" he says, trying for levity, and she inclines her head, still with that knowing smile. 

"Come get some air with me?" she says, and he should say no, should remind her who they are and where this is, but instead, his feet walk right after her like he's under a spell.

All he can think about is how that red silk would feel sliding all the way up her thighs.

He stands with her on some secluded balcony and searches her face for a clue as to what she's thinking, but her half-lidded eyes remain a sparkling mystery as she leans over the rail and watches the motion below.

He stands beside her and watches her.

"You look beautiful," he says, because it seems impossible at that moment not to speak such an undeniable truth. She pauses, eyes down at first, and then cautiously, slowly, she looks up at him. 

Then, all at once, her hand is on his wrist, pulling him away from the railing, and then she's standing on her toes, one arm around his neck and the other on his cheek, and he draws in his breath in the heartbeat before her lips press against his.

He could never have stopped that moment in a million years, even if for some unfathomable reason he wanted to. 

Her eyes are wide and unguarded when she draws back, her lipstick smudged and her breathing not steady. It's the first time in a long time he's seen her vulnerable like this and it drives him crazy that he'll have to let her put them straight back up and pull away.

"That was a one-off," she says breathily. "Blame the champagne."

"Better make it twice-off, then," he mutters, and he kisses her again before he can come to his senses, something deeply buried in his chest roaring in triumph as her lips curve into a smile against his and she kisses him back with all the fire he keeps seeing in her flashing eyes. 

And they won't speak of this again, but he'll think of it often, and he'll remember how the silk of her hip feels underneath his fingertips for the rest of his life.

iv. 

They go back to some kind of normal, after that night on the balcony. He doesn't know how she does it but she's the picture of nonchalance at work, cool and collected when they're with everybody else and there's a job to do. She's mechanically pristine in meetings and at the office, scrupulously polite outside it, and nobody seems any the wiser. 

It drives him up the wall that she can be so in control when he feels like he's about to lose the last of his. He wonders for a while if she's decided to let it go, to move past him and find something that makes more sense, and he admits it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth to think of that. 

But it's not like he can do anything about it. 

He starts working later, suffocating Fury in the process and staffing Stark events he's not nearly interested in attending.

He thinks if he can throw himself far enough into work he might just get over this thing that's somehow turned him from a rising star in the field to a lovesick teenager again. When in doubt, go back to what he does best.

He gets a last-minute request to head Stark’s security detail at some Silicon Valley tech innovation conference in San Francisco in a few weeks and keenly accepts. Just him, a luxury hotel, and nothing but vegans to worry about for a few days. Fury approves the time out, and Maria waves the funding through on the condition that he actually socializes just once and doesn't just raid the minibar on his dollar. He promises with his toes crossed. 

So, he books flights and tries not to think about what he's running from.

Then two days later she hovers outside his office, hands in her jacket pocket, and his mouth is dry as he motions her to enter. 

Sue him if three different, very elaborate, fantasies about getting her alone in his office come to his traitorous mind. 

"I'm coming to San Francisco," she says casually, looking so prim and proper in her uniform but there's that look again, that look of defiant wanting in her expression, and he knows then that this isn't over for either of them.

"What?" he manages to say, and she shrugs. 

"Stark asked, and Fury thought it would be useful for me to go with you."

He's properly thrown, wondering what the hell Tony is playing at. He's the one who definitely shouldn't be encouraging her to go with him on their own to a hotel in San Francisco, and yet here he is, playing some kind of demented matchmaker.

It's either a test of his resolve or it's tacit encouragement and he has no idea which it is. 

Subconsciously he licks dry lips, and her keen eyes follow the motion. It's a tiny betrayal of her thoughts, which she's kept so hidden from him since the night of the gala, and a part of him relaxes. She's not passed this just like himself.

"You're okay with that?" he asks, his voice casual as his heart races.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she says, breezy and assured.

He sits back in his chair, arms folded, and quirks an eyebrow at her. She doesn't blush, but a tiny smile crosses her face and she spins around without another word, and he stops thinking about security details for the ballroom event and starts thinking about hotel rooms with interconnecting doors. 

He's still sat there hours later with nothing to show for his time except the insistent racing of his blood in his veins and a quiet sense of gathering speed in this uncertain course with fate. 

v.

They don't travel to the jetway together, and he goes through the initial briefing by himself, which suits him fine.

The first time he sees her is when she's sliding into the seat next to him when they're airborne, a smile that gives nothing away and a murmured "hey" the only acknowledgment he gets. He watches her tip her head back in her seat and close her eyes, and stares down the column of her neck to where her semi-unbuttoned shirt parts over her collarbone. 

Three hours of sitting this close to her suddenly seem like a bad idea.

She glances over at him a short way into the flight and catches him staring, and he doesn't have the will to pretend he's not. He meets her eye steadily and she sits up slightly straighter, a little more tension suddenly visible in the lines of her body as she turns slightly, one of her knees pressing against his and all he can wonder is why the hell she isn't she in the cockpit just to give him some relief.

Her eyes drop briefly to his lips and he wonders if she can tell he's holding his breath. "Autopilot." She says and he wonders if he said that out loud. 

She smiles just slightly, and she turns her head back to the paperwork she brought aboard, but her thigh remains pressed against his, and it's all he can do not to reach out and run his fingers over the black denim. 

He shuts his eyes and methodically lists the states in alphabetical order, and definitely doesn't think about dragging her into the bathroom when the other agents aren't looking. 

When they touch down in San Francisco he's more wound up than ever, and practically leaps out of his seat when the door opens. He sees her hiding a laugh out of the corner of his eye and he shoots her a long, suffering look, and he gets his own back by leaning right over her to get their bags down. Her smile fades and her breath fans against the neck of his open collar; he grins at the gleam of smoky defiance in her eyes.

When they get settled at the hotel he's not exactly sure if he's relieved or disappointed that her room is safely two floors up from his, but they go their separate ways anyway with a risky promise to meet for dinner. 

They go out to some Beatnik era speakeasy-turned-restaurant in the middle of town and he pays, so afterward she suggests a bar and buys them drinks. It's a bad idea - no, horrible and stupid and dangerous idea, he thinks. But it's the best kind of bad, and turning her down is never even a consideration. 

"Did you come here to get away from me?" she asks casually, while he knocks back a second glass of Haig. He stares at her side profile as she shields her true emotions and shrugs. 

"Yes."

"Are you sorry I came?"

"No."

She considers him for a second, and then she's up off her barstool and her arms are around his neck and he's got one hand wrapped around his whisky and another wrapped around her and he thinks this just might be the night where he loses his mind for good.

They abandon their drinks after that and get a cab back to the hotel and, even in a hotel crawling with agents, their colleagues and superiors, he's got his hand in hers as he pulls her into the elevator and presses her up against the mirrors inside as he kisses her with every ounce of suppressed desire that's been climbing to a fever pitch ever since “here’s hoping.”

They're lucky nobody else calls the elevator on their way up because his hand is up the skirt of her black dress and her thigh is wrapped around his and anyone walking in right now would get one hell of a show. But they somehow make it back to his door and he manages to get the lock open on the first try so he can pull her in, one hand already working on the ties behind her neck and his lips demanding against hers. 

And then later when he pins her under him on the bed and has her writhing up against him he finally gets to see the complex golden brown of her eyes lit fiercely with ecstatic, unrestrained passion, and her lips groaning around the vowels of his name. 

If this is what wrong looks like he hopes he never has to be right.

vi.

He wakes up before her, hours before his alarm, turning his head to see her sleeping on the other side of the bed, her back to him and half covered by the sheet, tangled strands spilling down her back. 

His mind fills with memories of burying his hands in that hair, and her lips battling his for control.

If he couldn't see her right there in front of him, he'd think it was a fever dream.The wild abandon of their complete surrender to each other is still fresh in his mind; if he ever thought she'd be soft in bed he was wrong, and he knows he doesn't mind a bit. 

He feels uniquely worn out, but more satisfied than on any other morning after he can remember. He struggles momentarily with the temptation to reach out for her, to touch her bare skin, and pull her to him for a second time, but he wonders whether that's something he has the right to do. Maybe it was a moment of madness, she might think. Another champagne problem.

But his shifting around and deliberating has already stirred her, and she rolls over to look at him through barely-open eyes. 

"I can hear you overthinking from here," she mutters, exhaling audibly and then turning her back to him so she can insert herself, her back pressed up against his front and her legs tangled with his. "What are you stressing about?"

"I didn't want you to regret this," he admits. She pauses.

"Do you?"

"No," he says, stroking idle patterns down her arm. "But you already know that. This is about you."

She huffs slightly at that, because though it's unfair it's almost certainly true, and he gets a flash of contempt as she glances over her shoulder at him. 

"I don't regret it," she says plainly, stubbornly, and he relaxes, dropping his lips to the back of her neck. She shivers and presses her hips back against his.

"Why did Stark really bring you here?" he asks.

"I asked him to let me come."

He digests that for a minute, and he feels her tense under his fingertips, betraying her sudden concern that he will take this revelation poorly. It's one thing for her to be sent by chance; it's another that she engineered this herself. Again. He contemplates toying with her, just as she has done with him so many times in the past, but quickly decides this is not the moment. 

This is a moment where certain things can be set in stone or thrown to the wind like dust in a hurricane.

"I don't usually like to thank Stark," he mumbles, moving his lips down her neck to the juncture of her shoulder and applying just enough pressure that he might yet leave a mark. "But I guess I owe him one this time."

Some things are already set in stone.

She relaxes, breathing out as she drags his hand down over her stomach, and presses back against him with an insistence he can hardly ignore.

They wind up being half an hour late to a meeting with the rest of the agents and have to slip in to hear Stark drone on about his newest project, but he thinks a few frowns of disapproval are a small price to pay for the morning he's had. 

And when they sit in the back like a pair of idiot teenagers and her fingers are idly sliding up his thigh because everyone else is busy looking at the 3D models of updates to his launch of commercialized self-driving cars, he starts to think that anything Stark-related can be foregone altogether. Maybe all of the innovators, if it means he gets to spend the rest of his time with her poised above him, under him, sparkling and triumphant and oh so pleased with herself, her face so beautiful and open and unguarded instead of secretive and restrained. 

It's enough to make him wish, quite sincerely, that they could walk away from it all and forget the reasons why this can't last. 

vii.

He thought the weekend would drag out, just like every other mission involving Tony Stark, but this one’s over before he’s even blinked.

And as their days go by, their flight back to DC begins to loom ever closer. 

She knows it too, and when they get back to his room on the last night she seems subdued, and he can't say he blames her.

Her room hasn't been slept in once and he can't remember the last time he was with somebody so many times in such a short space of time. It's been chaotic and perfect and beautiful, and an utter goddamn relief after so many years of wanting her from afar. 

The thought of giving all that up to go back to their professional normalcy is treacherous. 

Back to ‘you can look but you can't touch.’ 

She's wearing something sleek and elegant in silver, Tony insists they come to his exclusive party as themselves, not agents. Not undercover as Heidi and Charles. Just Phil and Melinda. Something about promising Maria that he would do something fun. Phil wanted to nothing more than screw the entire thing and stay in their hotel room, but then Maria would know something’s definitely up. So, they go together, mingle politely with more Deutsche douches, and finally end in fancy drinks that they show their faces at and then swiftly make an exit, desperate to make the most of their borrowed time. 

She's looking back at him with a strange expression on her face, one that's caught between tenderness and some kind of simmering anger at the world at large and it's a feeling he thinks he understands. 

Because it's never just been about wanting her. It's about loving her too, and that's the part that makes it so hard.

If he loves her he will not threaten her career, and he'll do what's right by her. And that means never dragging her into a career bloodbath, never encouraging the world to see her as emotional and unfit to be an agent if someone dies on her watch because she's biased and they're having sex. Even if avoiding that cuts at least one heart out of their chests. 

Because he's never been sure if this means love for her too but he knows at least for him the part that comes next is willingly offering up his own heart to be broken again, torn away from the very thing he wants to keep close.

And he thinks she's telling him the same damn story in those dark, lamenting eyes, fixed on him in the half-light of this one final night. 

He kisses her slowly in a way that he hasn't on previous nights. Where it was frenzied, lustful, maddening passion before it's now an agonizingly beautiful slowness, a quiet requiem for the things they've shared and the things they may never get to be. 

He undresses her with a reverence he hasn't had before, drinking in the silken slide of fabric over her skin and taking the time to watch her face with every touch, every butterfly kiss he presses to her throat, her chest, her inner thigh. 

And when he lays her down on the bed she wraps her arms and legs tight around him and her lips part silently against his ear as he makes love to her, undeniably so, and he doesn't say it but the words are on repeat in his head as if they're the final bars of a perfect symphony.

And then her eyes go wide and she's clinging to him, and her lips part in a delicate cry that ends in the words "I love you."

viii.

He finds out that there's a particular kind of loneliness that comes with not being with her. 

He doesn't regret that they took their chance to be with one another in every way they so desperately wanted to be, but he has to admit the aftermath is a hell of a lot more painful than the longing was before. 

Knowing what he's missing really sucks. 

She's back to being careful and reserved, never really meeting his eye for longer than she has to. She's no longer catching him on his own whenever she can for the sole purpose of tormenting him with her proximity like she used to do, and instead, she seems to be avoiding him altogether. 

He can understand why. It's difficult to forget the way _I love you_ tasted on each other's lips that last night in California, and that makes it damn hard to flip back to casual flirtation when they've both said how it's so much more. 

He hates that he has to sit back and watch as she always becomes the first to leave a briefing, the first to volunteer to work with Garrett or Hand or anyone but him, and the first to break eye contact if he ever sees her in hallways.

He looks for distraction and finds none because the only thing he's thinking about is her.

He goes out to a bar with Maria because he promised her he’d get out more after Audrey. She looks at him skeptically over the rim of her Mint Julep and takes a long sip.

"What the hell's got into you?" she asks casually. "You look like someone died." 

He swirls his whiskey and eyed her sidelong. 

With Audrey, she came along at the right time, made him realize that there were other people, that there was life outside what he lost choosing this life. It never really made a difference that they slept together, he thinks. It's part of the reason he was so quick to call it love. But not sleeping with her anymore never left any marks, any scars, the way not being with May most definitely has. 

And he knows how telling that is. 

"I'm just tired of being in the wrong place at the wrong time," he says, and knocks back his drink. She looks at him, calculatingly, shrugs, and doesn't ask further. That's why he could depend on Maria; she never really gets in too deep with him. It's easy and it's familiar and he can say what he wants without guilt. 

When they leave the bar she looks across at him intently, and he knows immediately that if he asked for it she would give him a night, no strings, no questions, and for a second he is tempted.

It's only for that one second though while standing there on the pavement in the stifling midnight air, because he knows that going down that road, in the end, would be like putting a bandaid trying to fix a missing limb. 

Pointless, and bound to cause more pain in the long run than it resolves. 

So he says goodnight and takes a cab home, his head a little fuzzy, and his heart hurt way more than it did when he walked into that bar. 

He wishes he would get home and find her waiting on his doorstep, like some kind of cheesy rom-com, but life's not like that. May's definitely not like that (thankfully). His apartment stands empty and he lets himself in with a growing frustration roiling in his belly along with the dull burn of alcohol. 

For the first time in a long time he cracks open a bottle of vintage whiskey he promised he would drink with her after their worst mission on his own and drinks more of it than he should, slouched there on his sofa in the dark and waiting for something he knows will never come.

ix.

His lackluster performance is becoming increasingly obvious to Fury and Maria. It's not that he's doing a bad job per se, but he's got none of the spark he used to in recruiting missions and presenting his ideas for operations. He's making no waves and the silence is felt.

He knows that they’ve must have been talking about him when Fury sidles over at lunch. He never makes his appearance at the cafeteria. _Never._

He’s fucked up big time. 

"You're messing up your career here," Fury says, biting into a sandwich with slight disgust. "Not that that hurts me in any way, but even I don't want to see you go out like this."

"What are you talking about?" he mutters, eyeing Fury with considerable annoyance over his own untouched lunch.

"I'm talking about Agent May," Fury says bluntly, and even the mention of her name makes him recoil slightly. Fury cocks an eyebrow. 

"I'm guessing something happened in San Francisco," he says astutely. "Not that I really doubted it would when she asked to go, but-"

He stares at Fury warily. "If you knew, then why'd you let her?" he asks, not even really caring that much about the answer now. The damage is already done and it's more for completeness' sake.

Fury shrugs. "I almost didn't. But I figured it was going to blow up sooner or later. Better to keep the damage contained off a Shield base, if possible."

Phil gives him a look of mingled weariness and annoyance, and Fury sighs at his lack of resistance in the face of blatant provocation. 

"Ok. Believe it or not, I'm not trying to be a jackass. Obviously whatever is going on isn't working for you or May, so you need to sort it out."

"What do you mean 'for May'?"

Fury shoots him a disparaging look. "What, you've been too busy moping around to see how miserable she is too? She's more distracted than you, fucking up training and basics operations. Does that sound like the Agent May we know? To fuck up missions she could do in her sleep?" 

"It's kind of hard to notice anything when she can't bear to be in the same room as me for more than five minutes," he replies irritably. Fury pauses, considering. 

"You’re serious about her?" he asks suddenly, and Phil sits back in his chair, alarm bells ringing. He doesn't really know Fury's game here and he knows this is like walking on landmines.

But it's hard to lie about something so certain.

"Crazy about her," he mutters, avoiding eye contact, and to his surprise Fury laughs, hard.

"Never thought I'd see the day," he says, shaking his head. "Phil Coulson, lovesick as a good old fashioned puppy dog and not running away from it. About fucking time. Could’ve called this shit a decade ago."

"Do you have a point here, Nick?" he grits out, the seething feeling of embarrassment and annoyance bubbling up inside him. 

"Listen, from where I sit, your judgment is already compromised as hell when it comes to May. Always has been. Never changed anything. You're in love with her. I don't see what difference it makes if you pretend not to be."

"Are you telling me to...go for it with May?" he says incredulously. "May. My partner. That May?"

"I'm saying with how damn useless the pair of you have become lately, it might be in our best interests for the best two agents we have to stop torturing each other," Fury says pointedly, as he gets up and balls up his empty wrapped before tossing it into the trash can like a basketball. He misses but Phil doesn't say anything. A smirk tugs at his lips, giving away his glee. 

"I'm not saying it'll be easy," he adds with a self-satisfied grin, ignoring the plastic that lay in shame by the column by the trash. "But is it ever?"

Fury leaves the wrapper for Phil to pick up as if it was intentional. 

x.

He sits in his office later in a state of confusion. 

He'd assumed that there was absolutely nowhere for him to move when it came to May and Shield, that everyone would be united in their condemnation of them both if they dared to pollute that sacred anti-fraternization rule, but Fury has already pointed out that the situation isn't that simple.

It's true that his feelings for May are already there, have been for a while, and if they're going to cloud his judgment then that's already been happening for years. 

He doesn't think it's affected anything, not when it comes to committing to missions. They're both pretty damn good at ignoring everything else when they have a mission, and he knows he can handle putting her in harm's way without fretting too _much. He would never put their team in such jeopardy. He would also go to the ends of the earth to keep her safe even if meant bad news for him, that's what a partner does. He's also not afraid to shut her down, not least because she'd never expected anything less._

__

In fact, she'd be pissed as hell if he ever went soft on her, and he knows better than that. 

__

He thinks they could make it work. 

__

He jumps when Maria walks in, her head down staring at some file she wants him to take a look at, but she glances up and gives him a suspicious look at his uncharacteristic jumpiness. 

__

"All right," she says, chucking the folder on his desk and folding her arms. "What is with you? You've been acting like an ass since you got back from California, so what gives? Were the vegans really that bad? I'm asking as your boss or your friend, pick one."

__

He taps the end of his pen up and down on his desk compulsively, stopping and starting to speak several times.

__

"It's May," he finally mutters. Maria's expression holds for a minute before shifting into some kind of resigned realization. 

__

She shuts the door. 

__

"Something happened," she says, turning back to him, her tone giving nothing away. "In San Francisco."

__

"Yeah," he says hoarsely. He feels like a highschooler brought up in front of the principal. 

__

"Fuck, Phil," she mutters, rubbing her forehead wearily. "So- you both do something about it finally and now it's too awkward to work together, is that it? Just a one-off? A fling?" 

__

He bristles. "It's more than that," he mutters. "This isn't just some fling."

__

She stares at him intently, and sits down opposite him.

__

"Isn't?"

__

He looks at her warily, knowing what she's asking. "Isn't."

__

"Figures,” Maria says, rolling her eyes. 

__

"Yeah," he says. 

__

And they talk. 

__

xi.

__

He realizes, after finally getting a decent night's sleep for the first time since the flight home, that he really needs to talk to May. 

__

Not least because in the space of twenty-four hours he's managed to let both of their bosses know about them, and he thinks she's probably going to have some colorful words for him.

__

He feels stupid, nervous, as his finger hovers over her name in his phone during lunch, and he sends her a quick text to ask her to meet him, up at what he likes to call their spot on the balcony he's long since got used to thinking of as theirs. 

__

She makes him wait five minutes before she texts back, and another ten before she actually appears. She looks apprehensive, hands shoved in her pockets and a guarded expression on her face, but she meets his eye squarely as she draws up next to him, a careful distance between their bodies. 

__

"Hi," she says, and he longs to just cross that last bit of empty space but he holds himself back, offering a tentative smile as he looks over at her. 

__

She's tired, he realizes. The spark is subdued, like gray clouds over a blue sky in June. 

__

"I..." he stops, wondering how to start this without it sounding ridiculous, and decides, brashly, to jump right in. "Fury and Maria know something happened in California," he says awkwardly. 

__

Her eyebrows go up. 

__

"You told them."

__

"I didn't really have to," he admits. "I haven't exactly been _performing_ lately. They knew something was up."

__

She watches him silently, her expression unchanging, though he thinks he can see a flicker of nervous energy under that collected exterior. 

__

"Are they mad? Maria?" she asks, as casually as if she were asking about the weather. Though, he knows she's worried about Maria's reaction, especially since she wasn't the one to tell her. She's going to get hell for that, but he doesn't want to tell her that just yet.

__

"No," he says. "I think they had a bet how long it’d take before we’d crack."

__

"What about you?"

__

"They just think I'm an idiot that I took this long," he says, shaking his head slightly. "Mel, the last few weeks have been shit," he says suddenly, no longer caring about making this sound like a scripted movie and just desperate to make her understand that for him, they're well beyond waiting for a better time to make this work. 

__

It has to be now. 

__

He takes a step closer to her so they're almost touching, watches as her breathing catches and her eyes dart between his, so unsure, but still holding that same look she had the last time he kissed her.

__

"I love you," he says, his heart pounding and his fingers shaking with the urge to touch her. "But it's up to you," he adds, his eyes locked on hers as at last he can't stop himself and presses his hand to her cheek. "It’s always been up to you. You know that." 

__

She searches him, solemn-eyed and beautiful, no pretense or games as she weighs up the full measure of him, and then at last, at long last, she smiles up at him, and it's like starlight in the midnight sky. 

__

"I love you too."

__

__

xii.

__

"So how'd they take it?"

__

He wonders not for the first time whether Nick Fury has some kind of tracking device on him. 

__

He rolls his eyes and moves his suit coat so Fury can sit down opposite him, and studies him for a moment. 

__

"I went to HR reporting a relationship with my partner, the one rule we're told never to break," he says. "What do you think?"

__

Fury snorts, "leaving aside the obvious implication that you need to widen your social circle to outside this agency, they didn't oppose it?"

__

"No," he admits, and for a second he can't conceal his reluctant smile. "They didn't."

__

Fury looks irritatingly smug.

__

"You can thank me later. I want naming rights over your firstborn."

__

Phil rolls his eyes as Fury gets up, and then glances back at him. "Hey Nick," he says, and Fury turns. "Thanks."

__

Fury laughs to himself again, muttering _fucking idiots,_ and walks away, shaking his head. 

__

And Phil sits and reflects on this unexpected turn of fate.

__

A week ago he thought he would never so much as to share an honest moment with May again; today, he's had Shield sign off on a bona fide relationship with her. 

__

It's terrifying. 

__

He's not her sole partner anymore unless there's another agent on the case too, and that’s the biggest hit they take. He knows he's good for her from a career perspective, knows that nobody is better placed to bring out her best in the field than he is. And truthfully, there’s not another agent who suits him as well as she does in there either. Shield knows that, so their red tape will probably be gone by next month if the Director has anything to say about it. If there’s anything Nick hates more than sloppy work is moping agents. 

__

But he’ll take any red tape, any restrictions if it means he’s able to go home with Melinda May and there's nothing to hide anymore. 

__

He can legitimately stop her in hallways and shamelessly flirt with her in front of other agents like a pair of horny teenagers after a first date. 

__

Of course, that's not to say that he actually should do that, or that he ever would. In fact, he feels pretty awkward about the whole situation, and he tries not to give anything away if he ever encounters her and anybody else is in the room. To the point where he starts to think that he's now being even weirder than if he wasn't trying desperately not to be inappropriate, which is just great.

__

He’s giving himself a headache just thinking about the logistics. 

__

"Would you just relax?" she says incredulously, once Hand has fled the room after giving Phil a series of strange looks for his oddly aloof behavior. "You're acting like you've just abducted a child and robbed the federal reserve on the same night."

__

"Sorry," he mutters, dropping into the couch opposite her and rubbing his forehead. She's got a bunch of mission reports and paperwork around her, and she's seemingly adapting to their new professional status with way more elegance than he is. 

__

"We are allowed to talk to each other," she says distractedly, holding up a sheet in front of her face and rotating it slowly to read the scribbled handwritten notes directly in the light. "It's not like we're about to get up and have sex on your desk."

__

She catches his eye then and he tilts his head, his expression deliberately suggestive. She rolls her eyes and suppresses a smile.

__

"Point is, you need to act normal, or people are going to think something even weirder is going on than it already is."

__

She gets to her feet and comes around the back of the sofa he's sat on, leaning down and putting one arm around his chest from behind. She kisses his cheek softly, and he sighs.

__

"Was that so hard?" she says, swatting at the back of his head suddenly with one of her papers. "Now come on, let's go back to your place. I'm about done here."

__

"You're the boss," he says, getting to his feet and she laughs. 

__

"Damn straight," she says and puts her hand in his.

__

It's going to take some figuring out, he thinks, but as he holds her hand walking through the parking lot before they get into the same damn car, he's pretty happy with how things have turned out. 

__

Because now, when he looks in those brown eyes, all he sees is the rest of his life. 

__


End file.
